New backgrounds/CGs for lipsync

[ItaloKnox]

With the sprites pretty much sorted out, we still need to rename the backgrounds and CGs. We could just skip them, but the issue is that they are also affected by the same quality issues as the sprites.

Here are some comparisons: Background and CG.

I still think we should also update those because the sharpening seems to be a little too strong. But if you guys decide to skip it, I'll accept it.

[enumag]

I'm not completely sure if we should rename them. But it will probably be difficult to replace them without renaming them first. @P-Chang What do you think we should do here?

[enumag]

And I'm still undecided whether the sharpening is good or bad for these. I'm a bit inclined to keep the sharpened ones to be honest. It's not a strong preference though, I'm fine with changing it if you guys want.

[ItaloKnox]

Well, if you guys want to avoid the trouble we can just skip those and use them as is. I dislike sharpening but I can understand those who like it, it gives a more "anime" feel to the image.

If we skip them I'll have to find a way of taking only the backgrounds and CGs from our current packs, it'll take some time since I have to rely on the terminal.

[enumag]

@ItaloKnox If we end up doing that I'll write something to make it easy for you.

[enumag]

What I'm not quite sure about is why do I like sharpening on these but didn't like it on sprites? Maybe I just had too few examples to compare and I'd talk differently if I have seen more.

[EliEron]

Not sure if I get a vote here since I haven't done much for the project, but I personally dislike the sharpening. I actually felt this way back when the 1080p graphics were introduced as well, but I wasn't sure if I was the only one that had an issue with it.

Also since the sprites have been scaled to 1440p it would feel a bit strange leaving the CG and BG at 1080p, even though it technically works fine.

[enumag]

@EliEron It's not about voting, we definitely appriciate feedback from anyone. And you have a good point about the 1080p / 1440p thing.

[ItaloKnox]

I think we'll scale back the sprites to 1080p as well. waifu2x really does improve the quality, but it's still an upscale. It stops being good at 1440p, but since the sprites only take a small portion of the screen, you don't get to see the 1440p imperfections.

[enumag]

The thing is that if we make non-sharpened patches now then it's easy to just sharpen them again later. It doesn't work the other way around though. So that's another argument to remove sharpening...

[enumag]

@ItaloKnox Oh so 1440p BGs and CGs are no good and we won't make them?

[ItaloKnox]

I agree about the pros of removing sharpening.

Now, about the 1440p thing, people running 1080p displays won't notice the imperfections but those running 1440p displays will. The issue with CGs or BGs is that waifu2x doesn't behave well with scenes with a lot of details. Since the sprites are pretty simple, it can scale them up quite a bit without looking upscaled, but everything else is another story.

[P-Chang]

I remember @irlPM said he can handle it with his scripts(I don't know how it works) Although, we can combine question ark background and CGs with renaming only one sprites.

Basically if sprites scale are bigger than 480p and same aspect raito, different size sprites have no problem as far as I remember.

[irlPM]

Didn't I upload the bg/cg in 1080p for you @ItaloKnox ? I'll check the renaming process when I get home. I totattly agree that we need to replace the current bg/cg I don't like the shapening, and the colors are so much better. But well it is just my opinion.

[irlPM]

Here I found the link for the bg/cg in 1080p: https://mega.nz/#!Lg93hChT!KOp339ef3JypvHPHkKbvjOcKNJXpezHgqdTQ_tCZwpw

[ItaloKnox]

Yeah, you did. The link is actually already in our repo. Just need to replace them now.

[Grelo]

You can replace them if general audience like the normal ones more. I will just slightly sharpen them and use myself once you are done and release them as final. Still if we can make a thread on steam or r/visualnovels/ to know what people like and want it would only help, we can have normal ones as official and post a link to sharpened ones for those who want once im done. I would do that but im not good at this stuff.

[irlPM]

Or we could put a option in the installer? , I don't know. I'll try to put up a vote in discord.

[Grelo]

Is it ok for Sprites to be 2560x1440 or is 2560x1920 better?

[irlPM]

The currently ones are in 1440p.

[Grelo]

Yeah but we were making them 4:3 dunno why 16:9 now, that is why im asking.

[ItaloKnox]

@Grelo New sprites have to be 16:9 now.

Edit: to further explain, 4:3 works well with 4:3 resolutions while 16:9 works better in 16:9. The bigger alpha is necessary for a few functions.

[jwgrlrrajn]

@Grelo, what settings did you use for sharpening? I'm wondering if it might make my MG Zoom sprites look slightly better.

[Grelo]

@jwgrlrrajn They would need different amounts than PS3 sprites.

[Grelo]

Tommorow ill put here a link for 1440p sharpened BG and CG-only graphic pack. In case you decide to use a switch or option for it in the installer.

[jwgrlrrajn]

Alright, I played around with the settings, and I came up with this. Have a look and tell me what you think. If enough people prefer the sharpened version, I can go ahead and update all the MG zoom sprites. http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/127848

[Grelo]

So here it is BG's and CG's for those who like it spicy.

https://mega.nz/#!ZVkW3A7T!-sB16Dc-BAhLfW3qHbNFd_xtPOfcI8yMtNdxnNW4ORE

[enumag]

According to the vote @irlPM started on Discord we should use the non-sharpened images. In my opinion we should do that without any other effects. If we have a non-sharpened patch we can easily apply some smaller sharpening later or make whatever alternative versions we want.

@Grelo @P-Chang @jwgrlrrajn @ItaloKnox @irlPM Are you all in favor?

---

The main problem now is the BGs and CGs. As far as I know the numbers in our current patches are pretty much random so we can't just match them automatically to the PS3 names, right?

So we'll need some CSV files similar to what P-Chang made for sprites. With that I'll be able to make a program to both rename everything in the scripts and to separate the images needed for each chapter from the rest.

[ItaloKnox]

we should use the non-sharpened images. In my opinion we should do that without any other effects. If we have a non-sharpened patch we can easily apply some smaller sharpening later or make whatever alternative versions we want.

100% in favor. I still believe having the untouched PS3 graphics would be better, touched graphics or scripts that deviate from our vision of the project (that is to port everything from the console while keeping it uncensored) should be interesting for forks, but not for the official thing.

About the issue of the remaining graphics, I have no idea on how to fix it in a way that doesn't take a lot of time. I thought about running a dupe comparison and it might actually work, but we'll need to write down a CSV with original and new filenames. It'll be very time consuming but I can't think of a better solution. If you guys have no other ideas on how to make this easier, we can proceed with this.

[jwgrlrrajn]

I'm in favor of the unsharpened PS3 sprites, even though I don't really use them. I'll be okay with whatever we decide to do with the BG's/CG's, as long as they don't look too blurry. Worst case scenario, I can always sharpen my own images, if needed.

[enumag]

@jwgrlrrajn I'm guessing that you, Grelo or Iri will make some sharpened alternative patch. I'll probably use it as well when playing.

@ItaloKnox I don't think there is any other way. I considered matching them by a script but the different sharpening of the images makes that pretty much impossible.

[P-Chang]

I'm fine if everyone are fine.

[Grelo]

So no poll? Ok. Upon checking the new unsharpened sprites i agree they don't need the sharpening, pretty good. As of BG's and CG's i think use what you like as we don't know what general public prefer i would say normal ones. I will use mine so no problem ;)

[ItaloKnox]

We actually did a poll in our Discord channel, as far as I know, the majority was ok with unsharpening it. I'm not really against using sharpened backgrounds and CGs (even though my monitor dislikes them), but there's not really a way around it since the new assets still need to be renamed before even considering sharpening it again. 😩

[Grelo]

Plus don't forget the chapters have additional BG's that doesn't exist in PS3 folder, manually made. Or @P-Chang is ready to make it like in PS3 with different kind of filters, auto zooming PS3 BG's etc..?

[P-Chang]

I didn't. BG replace don't have higher priority for me. because lipsync work without it.

I'm busy in making DLL and character sprites name comparison.

[irlPM]

Hm anyone find other solution? I think I'll need to rename them manually...

[enumag]

No. I don't think there is any other solution.

[enumag]

Doing all the manual work needed here might be too much for one person. Maybe we should split them and do do one chapter each? I mean I can certainly manage one chapter, but taking all of them feels like too much work.

Basically for each chapter we need a text file with <bg file in current patch> => <same bg file in PS3 resources>.

If anyone wants to help, please comment which chapter you're taking before you begin to avoid overlap.

[ItaloKnox]

I should be able to work on one chapter over the next week. Don't wanna say Onikakushi because there's a chance I might stall progress if anything goes wrong. Ideally, I would like to do Himatsubushi.

[enumag]

Kay @ItaloKnox, Hima is yours.

I'm taking Tatarigoroshi.

[P-Chang]

you guys says that BG or CG?

BG are same without one file (I checked it few month ago, but i lost which is it)

[enumag]

@P-Chang You mean CG, right? At least that's what @DoctorDiablo said on Discord...

[enumag]

I mean CGs were taken from PS3 files in the first place so it makes sense. BGs on the other hand were manually replaced from the ugly MG originals - renaming them in the process.

[P-Chang]

I mean QA Backgrounds like school, village, police station.

[enumag]

Judging from how the patch was made I believe there will be quite a few differences. Well we'll see I guess. It can only make our work easier so it's fine.

[irlPM]

I'm going with Wata

[P-Chang]

I checked simple diff. oni, wata, tata, background are same.

In Hima

bg_027
bg_046
bg_046_a
bg_048
bg_050_a
bg_093a
bg_208
bg_223

are different. sorry differences is not one.

[edited]

bg_108 are different (oni and wata one are same) (tata one is different)

[enumag]

@P-Chang I really don't understand what you mean. I'm currently comparing Tata. For example this image:

is named bg_010.png. In the PS3 resources the name is completely different - jd4.png. This goes for all backgrounds. There are no bg_* images in the PS3 files.

EDIT: Never mind. I get it now. You mean that the BGs are mostly named the same across all chapters except Hima so we don't need necessarily need a different txt file for each chapter.

[P-Chang]

@enumag I mean modded Oni and Wata are using same image.

In Tata bg_108 is different with Oni and Wata.

In Hima

bg_027
bg_046
bg_046_a
bg_048
bg_050_a
bg_093a
bg_208
bg_223

are different with other arks.

we don't need comparing over 100 BG files 4 times.

[enumag]

@P-Chang Yeah I understand now. Are you certain that bg_108 is the only different one in Oni, Wata and Tata or should we double check?

Mea uses completely different names so that will need to be done separately.